3.03.2015

Ottobre 6/2013, No11

Well, I'm not an easy one to surprise, but Dan pulled one over on me this time with his post for my birthday. I had no idea that he had written it until I read the first comment in my inbox. I was temporarily very confused and then, of course, touched. He's a sweet one, that guy! I'm so thankful to be married to him.

Thank you so much for the lovely birthday wishes. I know it's a pain to leave a comment and I appreciated them so much.

I turned 34 and so far my 30s have been great. Way, way back when I was in my early 30s (ha!), blog posts started cropping up by prominent (non-sewing) bloggers about coping with 'aging'... and they were all in their 30s! At first I was alarmed- I didn't know that was even supposed to be on my radar! Should I be upset about being in my 30s, too? And then I realized it's a product of living in a youth-obsessed culture. This life is a gift and I'm so thankful for it. I love being in my 30s much more so than my 20s. By this point you know who you are, you're comfortable in your own skin, and you know how futile it is to try to please everyone. It's simply impossible. (As a people pleaser by nature, this one took me a long while to grasp.)

On my birthday morning, Jude and Indigo told me to take a l o n g shower and then they made me a birthday breakfast : eggs, coffee, fruit salad, tomato slices, and coffee. They made it all by themselves and covered everything with aluminum foil to keep it warm. Indigo even added a couple of sprigs of mint as garnish - fancy!

Indi also made me this small pink bird out of modeling beeswax. I love it!

Over the weekend I had the chance to sew up this quick Ottobre top for Iris. It's from Ottobre 6/2013 No11. I love the details of this top. The sleeves are gently gathered.

And the bindings are an olive colored jersey. I can't remember where I found it, though.

I have to report back also and say I am really enjoying Instagram (you can find me here). I wish I wouldn't have been such a curmudgeon about it and had joined sooner. It really doesn't take much time at all and the commenting format is so, so awesome. A million times better than Blogger/Wordpress or Flickr. It's so iPhone friendly, which works great for me since I usually read while nursing the baby to sleep.

Also, one of my (many) New Year's Resolutions was to take more daily life photos of my family. Having had sick kids this winter, I wasn't feel as inspired as I would have liked to be. This is a good motivator for me to go for that goal. Here are a few photos I posted this week.

5 comments:

Soooooo cute!! Another Ottobre knit top/dress to add to my already quite long list! :-) And I love the everyday photos. Iris in the boots!!!! Too sweet! And Dan pretty much rocked that bday, I think. I'm with you, I think the 30s are awesome, although my fast approach towards 40 is giving me some pause. Mostly because I feel like I should be so much more mature by now! Ha.

Cute little top and super cute little Iris.I was amused to see how your birthday breakfast was arranged on colour matched plates. Have you heard of Sophie Calle?"Calle asked writer and filmmaker Paul Auster to "invent a fictive character which I would attempt to resemble"[10] and served as the model for the character Maria in Auster’s novel Leviathan (1992). This mingling of fact and fiction so intrigued Calle that she created the works of art created by the fictional character, which included a series of color-coordinated meals." Full Wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_CalleYou may have some performance artists among your breakfast chefs!

My 30's were a decade of growth, emotionally and spiritually. There were some pretty tough years in there, but also amazing blessings. I think it's good to embrace every stage of life, and to learn as much from it as we can. It seems to me you are clearly doing that:)Love that bday breakfast! My favorite part was seeing the fruit salad and large chunks of apple cut up - love their earnestness in preparing that for you! And bravo to you for taking a picture and documenting it - yay for Instagram!!